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Comment by bobmcnamara | Hacker News Reader

Good Lord what a dystopian hellscape America must've been before Flock! How did police solve anything?

Almost nothing like what is seen in police procedural television series, that’s for sure.

Although there is (allegedly) a fun feedback loop that cops more and more expect their jobs to be like police procedurals and try to solve crime as if reality was shaped by Dick Wolf.

Imagine coding like it’s shown in the Matrix, or Grandma’s Boy.

Have you ever been a victim of a non-violent crime?

Loads of those just fall through the cracks of the system.

"solving the case" is mostly keeping all documented until they stumble on to something obvious, like already known perp having your stuff hidden in his stashing place while they go grab him for something unrelated.

In my city's subreddit, last week there was both a post complaining about the police not doing anything about a car break in, and a post complaining about flock on the front page.

People hate all kinds of things police do until they need the police to do something.

If you don't have video evidence the vast majority of non violent crimes go unsolved. How many manhours is a car break in worth, or a break in? Especially when the end result more than likely is still not enough to convict someone on.

Rings surveillance network and the huge network of private CCTVs has shown even with video evidence cops refuse to do their job if nobody is dead. If you get a package stolen in apartment complex, the PMs won't let anyone but police see the footage and the police will not come out to view the footage. Cameras stopped being a deterrent when criminals realized there are no consequences when they are caught on camera.

The police will however stalk and harass their partners, people they personally dislike, etc because they can view the footage at their leisure.

The lack of cameras is absolutely not what's stopping police from doing their job, its the complete lack of accountability or responsibility.

Someone breaks into a car. There is no camera, no witnesses immediately came forward.

Please do tell me what you want the police department to do here.

Someone breaks into a car. There is a camera. The cops don't care and the owner doesn't know the guy.

Please tell me what you think the police would do here?

You sound like someone who never had the police tell you they won't bother looking into it after you present them with surveillance footage clearly showing the crime happening.

Have you lived in a truly, totalitarian system? Have we really all forgotten from 1984? I get no one reads but come on.

I don't see anyone moving to Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, etc from the United States of America.

Just like I don't see libertarians flocking to Somalia.

Of course, white Americans don't think the cameras will be used against them. It's just for all those other people.

State surveillance builds infrastructure easily abused by bad actors, is a valid privacy argument.

I see extreme comparisons, false binaries, and emotional framing, that is not really convincing me.

A few yes, though wage & PTO theft and wage fixing were the financially most impactful.

> Loads of those just fall through the cracks of the system.

Annoyances aside, I'm still not sure it's worth trading civil liberties when wage theft dwarfs the entire category of property crime.

Well, that's the thing. Many crimes weren't solved, for precisely the problem that Flock solves. I never thought I'd rally in support of mass surveillance, but when criminals can brazenly flee a scene and not be pulled over because pulling over a suspicious vehicle is now considered "profiling". I find myself supporting an idea I used to be against.

> when criminals can brazenly flee a scene and not be pulled over because pulling over a suspicious vehicle is now considered "profiling"

You know full well that stopping a know car fleeing the robber and profiling are two massively different actions. They are not the same thing at all.

Also, it would be nice if people stopped fantasying about crime and basing their arguments on cool movies scenes.

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